Just wondered how common is aquaplaning these days? I happened to be driving a 107 in the rain last weekend and noticed it very briefly on 2 occasions. Tyres are top quality and in excellent condition. This was something that I had completely forgotten about but looking at the width and profile of tyres on a lot of cars it was got me wondering.

Anyone any idea?

Doesn't matter how good quality or new the tyres are, they are still only going to clear a given amount of water. If because of your speed, or the depth of water, the tyre is no longer able to clear the water, you will aquaplane. Even the very best 'wet' tyre, can still be overcome if you are driving too fast for the amount of water on the road. The fact that it happened briefly on two occoasions suggests that in your case, it was a couple of patches of deeper standing water. Apart from simply sticking to a slower speed, there is not really anything you can do about it unless you can spot these areas of deeper water in advance and adjust your speed accordingly.

And yes Andy, absolutely spot on re cheap tyres (a personal bugbear of mine). I have read plenty of tyre tests that show where the biggest difference between a cheapo tyre and a good quality tyre really shows. It is where you need it most, in wet conditions (lateral grip, braking and resistance to aquaplaning).

That is an excellent clip Andy. Really hits home the point. We probably would all assume cheapo tyres are not as good as more expensive ones but its made me appreciate the difference could be life or death. Cheers

and yes it's as obvious as the nose on your face, a new tyre at 6mm tread isn't going to shift as much water as a new tyre of similar pattern with 8mm.

But there are people that would disagree with that, and maintain the tyre tread design will clear water faster( I disagree with them) as water and tyres are both unpredictable and to clear water faster you need wide channels that pick it up and throw it away from the tyre.

having small channels with bends in is not going to speed water flow up, it slows water flow down, and although they have a pump action in the tread its not quick enough to clear all, and as mentioned a tyre has its water clearing ability restricted by volume of water, too much and tyre cannot cope

Sometimes it doesn't have to be aquaplaning as such, if one side of the car hits a stretch of deep water even if the tyre is still on the road the force of frictional 'braking' of the one front wheel can easily upset a vehicle, pulling you hard in that direction from which its difficult to recover.

Obviously tyre widths in keeping with the weight of the vehicle makes this less likely, racing car style tyre widths make it much more likely.

This is quite apart from the lack of water clearing side sipes in so many summer car tyre designs, you need some side grooves to shift water er sideways, with some of the current designs it would be too easy for a wedge of water to build up being pushed forward in front of the tyre eventually enough to lift it from the road, the lighter the car the wider the tread the easier it would be to happen....and yes it's as obvious as the nose on your face, a new tyre at 6mm tread isn't going to shift as much water as a new tyre of similar pattern with 8mm.

My Mazda3's OEM tyres (Bridgestone ER30) were 6.5 years old but also only down to about 4-5mm tread on the front and 5-6mm of tread on the rears when I changed them for the next set (Dunlop SP Sport Fastresponse).

I did so because, within a short space of time, the back end broke away in damp (the road wasn't flooded - just a normal amount of rain) whilst going round roundabouts at normal speeds (and had done safely before many times). On neither occasion was a braking or accelerating, just steering.

To me, this shows that older and/or worn/poorer quality tyres (the original OEMs are poorly regarded generally and get very poor reviews on the Tyre Reviews website - when Bridgestone had a 'bad period' [my old Micra has some RE720s and they were great]). Mine had plenty of tread, but were obviously getting hard (very noisy) due to their age, and, to be frank, were noisy from about 1yo. Dry handling and grip were always fine.

The replacement Dunlops were excellent and never had a problem with grip throughout their life, including in the wet. If I had the choice of a car having either traction control and cheapo ditchfinder tyres, or no TC and high quality tyres, then I'd choose the latter every time.

Cars can have every three-lettered acronymn safety device under the sun, but if that's combined with cheapo, poor quality tyres, then what's the point - the tyres are the car's only contact with the road, and if they don't work safely in the wet.

This is why I went for the Michelin Cross Climate+ tyres to replace the Dunlops - designed for low wear, to work much better than the competition when worn and excellent wet & decent grip in wintery conditions (compared to summer tyres).

It should be noted that when I changed tyres last year, I also downsized my alloys (they needed replacing as they were corroding and causing air leakage in the tyres) from 16in to 15in, which were much cheaper (almost half price), as were the tyres (about 25% cheaper), not much more in total than just replacing all four tyres plus one wheel at the old size. The new tyres are a bit skinnier too (195mm wide from 205mm), which should help with aquaplaining.

I think that the move over to low profile tyres on many more non-performance cars is what leads to more aquaplaining incidents, especially as people (like my former colleague) choose cheapo tyres because they can't afford the high cost of the premium or even mid-range makes when it comes to replacing them.

I also think that too many people drive at the speed limit even when road layout and/or conditions mean you should be well below that, thinking that their car's XXX safety devices will get them out of trouble.